Firearm rail systems are typically integrated into the handguard of the firearm. This system provides a means of attachment of various mountable accessories such as scopes, sights, grips, and lights.
Universal mounts like the MIL-STD picatinny rail mounts provide a firm and secure mounting option for users, but at the expense of increased weight. This is detrimental to the user's abilities. The configuration of the picatinny rails requires many rails to span along the handguard. Therefore, a need existed for a system that would not add weight to the firearm but still provides a secure mounting point for accessories.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,752,320 B2 Accuracy International of North America, Inc. proposed a firearm with keyhole-shaped rail mounting points. This invention in its advanced stage of product development is now known as the KeyMod attachment system. This rail interface system was developed to provide multiple accessory compatibility without the need for the heavy aforementioned picatinny rail. This system is now widely used and provides many advantages over the previous mounting system. As with all inventions, drawbacks become apparent as time elapses and hence advancements must be made. The drawbacks of the invention include poor securement of polymer parts and the wide spacing needed for the KeyMod nut to clear the mount. The drawbacks are critical because many firearm manufacturers are making polymer parts to attach to the KeyMod interface due to the reduced costs of polymer versus metal, steel, and aluminum. Therefore, the most recent alternative rail interface system was designed as a free licensed platform. This rail interface is known as the M-LOK.
M-LOK is a modular locking accessory mounting system that allows direct attachment of a mountable accessory to a negative space mounting point. Unlike the keyhole shaped KeyMod rail interface, the M-LOK features large rounded square slots which is optimized for both metal and polymer mounting accessories. The advantages of the M-LOK are apparent, and as KeyMod did to the picatinny rail, the M-LOK is shaping up to be the next advancement in rail interface systems. The obvious issue with this advancement is that the M-LOK and the KeyMod are not cross compatible and hence accessories from one interface cannot be used on the other. Given that the major problem with KeyMod is the metal and polymer interaction issues, and not with stability or rigidity, the ability to utilize, for example a metal KeyMod mount on the M-LOK interface would be beneficial, at least financially.
Therefore, it is apparent that there exists a need in for a firearm accessory mount that can be attached onto dual rail interface systems namely the KeyMod and M-LOK attachment systems. It is a purpose of this invention to meet this requirement while providing the advantages of the prior art, and further purposes will become apparent to those skilled in the art.